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Game 17—@Eastern Michigan


Let'sGoZips94

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I said early on that this team needs Utomi to play well on the road to win.    He didn't. We lose.  His 3rd terrible game in a row.  Once again saw him shoot a 3 without drawing iron.  You would think that throwing up so many bricks that he would learn to follow up his shots.  I cannot tell you how many offensive rebounds he could have if he would move towards the ball after he shoots since he often leave the ball short.   

 

Watching this team trying to attack the zone is hard to watch.  When they do penetrate they freeze.  Very few easy baskets. A lot of perimeter passing using up the shot clock with no penetration.  We have Parish at the foul line trying to penetrate.  I would rather have a senior, Duvivier in the middle.  He has the experience of penetrating.  A absolute terrible end of first half and 2nd half offensively.  

 

The only good I can see on offense is I finally saw K make a nice post move at about the 7 minute mark of the second half.  He is a  work in progress.  Need to learn to go towards the basket and not away.  He also had a nice pass out of the post to a man breaking to the basket for a layup. 

 

I know we are lacking in talent and they are frosh but Groce must do a better job of getting these guys to attack a zone!!  

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9 minutes ago, NWAkron said:

looking at the box score, it looks like we only had 7 players in the game.  looking forward to a healthy, almost full team against Northern Illinois this Saturday.

I just heard the postgame where it looks like Sayles will be out for some time.  Does anyone know how long he will be out?

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I only was able to watch 2/3rds of the game, but man every time I watch EMU I quickly get reminded on how much I can't stand Thompson. He is the dirtiest player in the league. Kostelac seemed to do a solid job on him, but needs to continue to work on going up stronger on offense when he was it down low.

 

The way to beat the 2/3 is to get it into the high post. We do it sometimes, but the guy who gets it there is never looking to shoot so that makes it easy for the defense to defend. Put the best mid-range shooter we have there on offense. Parrish's play stuck out well, but Utomi nor Ivey brought it. We aren't going to win many when Ivey and/or Utomi aren't the leading scorers (and doing it in a somewhat efficient manner).


The T on Parrish pissed me off, especially in the wake of us one our of players going through a serious fall as a result of not hanging on it. There should be NOTHING wrong with hanging on the rim for a split second to regain your composure so you can land safely on your feet. To top it off, Thompson really hung on the rim TWICE that I saw and he didn't get called once. Fix the damn rule NCAA. I don't even see anything wrong with hanging on the rim...in fact better dunks would make the product better.

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11 hours ago, 1981 grad said:

I said early on that this team needs Utomi to play well on the road to win.    He didn't. We lose.  His 3rd terrible game in a row.  Once again saw him shoot a 3 without drawing iron.  You would think that throwing up so many bricks that he would learn to follow up his shots.  I cannot tell you how many offensive rebounds he could have if he would move towards the ball after he shoots since he often leave the ball short.   

 

Watching this team trying to attack the zone is hard to watch.  When they do penetrate they freeze.  Very few easy baskets. A lot of perimeter passing using up the shot clock with no penetration.  We have Parish at the foul line trying to penetrate.  I would rather have a senior, Duvivier in the middle.  He has the experience of penetrating.  A absolute terrible end of first half and 2nd half offensively.  

 

The only good I can see on offense is I finally saw K make a nice post move at about the 7 minute mark of the second half.  He is a  work in progress.  Need to learn to go towards the basket and not away.  He also had a nice pass out of the post to a man breaking to the basket for a layup. 

 

I know we are lacking in talent and they are frosh but Groce must do a better job of getting these guys to attack a zone!!  

 

- Completely agree. His lack of desire to follow his shot is infuriating, especially when he is missing so many consistently. He has become a liability on the floor, and to overcome his shooting struggles, he needs to exert more effort on the boards and defense.

 

- I don't know if yesterday's game was the best to evaluate our abilities or inabilities against the zone. Without Sayles and Poke, we were probably half a foot shorter than EMU on average, and with the refs letting them play, driving inside probably wasn't too enticing to our guys. The only way to counteract a zone when you aren't making your shots is dishing the ball to a player cutting to the basket once the defenders in the paint collapse on you, but that requires some pretty strong team chemistry usually. It's absolutely something that needs improved, but I'd like to see us play against EMU's zone when healthier to get a better judgement.

 

- I wonder how much attacking a zone is an uphill battle for a college coach. I don't watch AAU basketball, but everything I hear about it is it's mainly running up and down the floor in more of a showcase manner, rather than technical and strategical basketball. I can't imagine these guys play against much zone during their high school/AAU days. 

 

9 hours ago, dre22era said:

We beat Bowling Green at home by 2 

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31-18 personal fouls, in favor of BG. Duvivier, Kostelac, and Utomi fouled out (nobody on BG did). Sayles exited the game early with his concussion/injury. Poke obviously wasn't available. We were down to 5 players after all of this. A guy we found in the rec center came up with a massive rebound, and a freshman hit what ultimately was the game-winning 3. 

 

Just wanted to give you a summary of the game because it seems like you missed it and have no idea how much adversity the team overcame. 

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From what I could stomach watching, I saw guys flashing to the elbows and the foul line against the zone, but the Zips seemed hesitant to to make the pass.  They also seemed hesitant to penetrate to get the zone to collapse then kick it out.  I was happy with the deceased dribbling against the zone overall as compared to earlier in the year, but the lack of overall aggression on offense killed them all night.  I'd also like to see them push the ball in transition to pressure the defense before it is able to set up.

 

Happy to see a little breakout by Parrish.  Utomi is in a real funk and looks a little lost.  Given his high school stats, I'd guess he hasn't seen a lot of adversity on the basketball court.  Hopefully, it is a short term slump that he can play his way out of, or the Zips' difficult season may become a miserable one.

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I think Utomi's struggles have to with that fact that he is playing out of position. He is best suited for the 3 spot not the 4 or 5. He can play inside a little bit but he is primarily a perimeter shooter. He has been forced to play big and he looks uncomfortable. Also, French mentioned that Sayles had a bruised wrist and would be out for 2 weeks.

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7 minutes ago, feetg10 said:

I think Utomi's struggles have to with that fact that he is playing out of position. He is best suited for the 3 spot not the 4 or 5. He can play inside a little bit but he is primarily a perimeter shooter. He has been forced to play big and he looks uncomfortable. Also, French mentioned that Sayles had a bruised wrist and would be out for 2 weeks.

 

I think Utomi can easily play the 3 through 5 positions depending on the match-ups. The problem is we are so thin at the 4 and 5 right now and we need to use Utomi where we typically wouldn't. I think spending the last few games battling these monsters for position is wearing down his legs and effecting his outside shot.

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1 hour ago, LZIp said:

I only was able to watch 2/3rds of the game, but man every time I watch EMU I quickly get reminded on how much I can't stand Thompson. He is the dirtiest player in the league. Kostelac seemed to do a solid job on him, but needs to continue to work on going up stronger on offense when he was it down low.

 

The way to beat the 2/3 is to get it into the high post. We do it sometimes, but the guy who gets it there is never looking to shoot so that makes it easy for the defense to defend. Put the best mid-range shooter we have there on offense. Parrish's play stuck out well, but Utomi nor Ivey brought it. We aren't going to win many when Ivey and/or Utomi aren't the leading scorers (and doing it in a somewhat efficient manner).


The T on Parrish pissed me off, especially in the wake of us one our of players going through a serious fall as a result of not hanging on it. There should be NOTHING wrong with hanging on the rim for a split second to regain your composure so you can land safely on your feet. To top it off, Thompson really hung on the rim TWICE that I saw and he didn't get called once. Fix the damn rule NCAA. I don't even see anything wrong with hanging on the rim...in fact better dunks would make the product better.

 

I have mentioned before that bigs in this offense need to be able to shoot efficiently away from the hoop. At Illinois we always had a Stretch 4 type player the size of Sayles or even bigger who could hit that shot at a very high percentage. I expect to see a big jump in that capability next season.

 

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1 hour ago, feetg10 said:

I think Utomi's struggles have to with that fact that he is playing out of position. He is best suited for the 3 spot not the 4 or 5. He can play inside a little bit but he is primarily a perimeter shooter. He has been forced to play big and he looks uncomfortable.

 

I mentioned this a few weeks ago.  He's simply carrying too much burden for this team.  Last night was a good example.  Utomi and Ivey had a lot of the rebounds.   That's really unusual.   

 

In Utomi's case, it's hard to have your primary shooter/scorer doing so many other things on the floor, and expecting them to still be able to shoot/score well.    

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I'm not going to rationalize or defend what can't be defended, but I can be realistic in that the parts aren't there when we have two centers out of the game.  This is a really tortured analogy but imagine not having both Big Dog and Kwan out for a couple games last year.  Or maybe going without Zeke and Forsythe for a few games.   Im looking at the big picture and hoping end of February beginning of March will give us a few surprises.  I also really appreciate the wise analysis from all of you.

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29 minutes ago, NWAkron said:

I'm not going to rationalize or defend what can't be defended, but I can be realistic in that the parts aren't there when we have two centers out of the game.  This is a really tortured analogy but imagine not having both Big Dog and Kwan out for a couple games last year.  Or maybe going without Zeke and Forsythe for a few games.   Im looking at the big picture and hoping end of February beginning of March will give us a few surprises.  I also really appreciate the wise analysis from all of you.

I'm surprised the rebound differential wasn't greater since the EMUs started 6'10", 6'9", 6'9", 6'7" and 6'2" (add in 6'7" Bond off the bench). Not to mention the problems their length caused on the perimeter in their zone defense. When Kostelac was out we had no one in taller that 6'6". 

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14 minutes ago, ewbrooman1 said:

I'm surprised the rebound differential wasn't greater since the EMUs started 6'10", 6'9", 6'9", 6'7" and 6'2" (add in 6'7" Bond off the bench). Not to mention the problems their length caused on the perimeter in their zone defense. When Kostelac was out we had no one in taller that 6'6". 

Zone defense typically creates a lot of offensive rebound opportunities. Considering 11 of our 21 rebounds came on the offensive end, that explains a lot.

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